Releasing The Healing Power Of God

I want to preach today about the first recorded healing in the Bible. And I think as we go through it, I really ask God to give me a passage. And I didn't know what anybody was going to say, but I think you're going to see that the three points of the message today will really cohesively bring together the testimonies that were just given. And we want to pray for healing.

We want to go after healing as a church. I want to pray for healing. I don't ask the team to come back at the end of the message. And if you're here today and you have any sickness in your body, if you have anything that's not the way that God designed it to be, we're going to believe God to do the miraculous.

And in addition to that, I want you to leave today with confidence knowing that you can do it too. That whatever is in the Bible just is not a good story. It's not just something to like, wow, that was great 2,000 years ago, but that Jesus set the standard for what's available today. And then you can walk in the same power.

You can walk in the same authority that the team talked about. And you can lay hands on the sick and they'll recover. You can preach the gospel and people will respond and get saved. You know, the hundreds upon hundreds of people that got saved last week, the people that got touched last week, it's not one individual.

Paul says, he says, I planted, Apollo's watered, but God's the one that gave the increase. And it's always a work of the Holy Spirit. Salvation, the new birth, the greatest miracle of all time is a work of the Holy Spirit. Healing is a work of the Holy Spirit.

Deliverance is a work of the Holy Spirit. Paid for in full by Jesus. And so if you have your Bibles today, I want to talk about releasing the flow of God's healing power. Releasing the healing power of God.

Genesis chapter 20, we're going to read a story today. I want to read through it. It's 18 verses. So it's a little lengthy, but I'll make three points and hopefully we'll make them very quick.

I want to have time on to show you a testimony of a really great healing that took place while we were gone. And then I just want to invite you to come forward for prayer at the end. So we're going to read a story about Abraham today. And you're going to see in the midst of this story, God uses a man who most of us would have disqualified in the moment.

In the moment that he prays for healing, he's living in sin. Imagine that. He's just sinned. And yet God uses him in the moment to bring healing not just to a family, but to an entire nation.

I'm not condoning sin. I'm not condoning you live a sinful lifestyle. I believe that grace raises the bar. I don't believe in the slippery slope of grace.

I believe that grace actually empowers you to live holier than you even think is possible. The God equips you to live a holy life, but that your actions don't determine what God has in store for you. That what you do is not the thing that establishes who you are. Who you are is who God says you are.

And let's turn to Genesis chapter 20. Let me read through this. And we're going to make three points today. The points to this are taking our own down.

Number one, identity. These are just a few keys through which that if you'll latch on to these today, you can see the healing power of God flow through you. Identity. Number two, intercession.

And number three, instrument. Or a channel through which God can flow. Genesis chapter 20, verse one says this. It says, in Abraham's journey from there to the south and well between cadetian sure and stated Jorar.

Now Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, she's my sister. Now if you go back to Genesis 12, this is the second time that he's told his lie. He did this when he went to Egypt, when there was a famine, he goes to Egypt. He was scared that he would be slaughtered and that the king would see how beautiful his wife was that they would kill him and take his wife.

So he comes up with this story, this wife says, look, say you're my sister, I'll say I'm your brother and I'll say you're my sister. It said, Abraham said of Sarah's wife, she's my sister and a bimblak king of Jor said. And he sent and took Sarah. But God gave him to a bimblak and a dream by night and said to him, indeed, you are a dead man because the woman whom you have taken, she is a man's wife.

But a bimblak had not come near her. And he said, Lord, will you slay a righteous nation also? Did he not say to me, she's my sister. And she even herself said, he is my brother in the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands.

I've done this. And God said to him in a dream, yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, for I also withheld you from sinning against her. Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet and he will pray for you and you shall live.

But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die and you and all who are yours. So bimblak rose early in the morning called all his servants, told them all these things in their hearing and all the men were very afraid. And a bimblak called Abraham and said to him, what have you done to us? How have I offended you that you have wrought on me in my kingdom such a great sin?

You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done. And a bimblak said, Abraham, what did you have in view that you have done this thing? And Abraham said, because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place, they will kill me on account of my wife. But so here's what he says, but I only told it half truth.

But half truth is what? It's a half fib, or a whole lie, whichever way you want to look at it, right? So he doesn't lie all the way. So he lies a little all the way.

He said, I lost where I was. He said, what verse am I at? It says, but indeed she's truly my sister. She's the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother.

So it's a step-sister. So I didn't lie all the way. She's technically my sister, same dad, different mom. And he said, this is the king to pass.

When God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, this is the kindness that you should do for me. And every place we go, say of me, he's my brother. So he'd had rehearsed this with his wife, said everywhere we go, say that's my brother. And I'll say you're my sister.

So they've been running this scheme for a long time. He said, Abimlek took sheep, oxen, and male and female servants, gave them to Abraham. He restored Sarah, his wife to him. Abimlek said, see, my land is before you.

Well, where it pleases you. Then to Sarah, he said, behold, I've given you your brother a thousand pieces of silver. Indeed, this vindicates you before all who are with you and before everybody. And this she was rebuked.

And so Abraham prayed to God. God healed Abimlek. His wife is female servants and they bore children. For the Lord had closed up the wounds of the house of Abimlek because of Sarah Abraham's wife.

So Abraham, he goes into this land, says, you know, just so he can protect his own rear end. He said, I didn't think there was any fear of God here. So here's an instance where the man of faith, do you realize he's the father of our faith? And do you realize this that under grace and the new covenant when you go to Genesis chapter 11, when it lists all the men and women of faith and it devotes several verses to Abraham, it never lists his failures.

It only lists his faith. But when you read the story in Genesis, it talks about some of his failures that he went through. But under grace, they're not recorded. And so it said, I was fearful for my life because I thought there was no fear of God in this place.

And so I told me and I thought you would take my wife into your here. So I did it because I didn't fully trust God. And so the first thing that we need to know is this, if you're going to allow the healing power of God to flow through you, do you realize that the healing power of God is in you? Do you realize the same power that raised Jesus from the dead resides in you unto him, Ephesians 320, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly, exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to or in proportion to the power that is in us.

So the ability for God to do above anything you can even imagine, among anything you can think, among anything you can even ask, his ability, he can do those things according to the power that's already in you right now. See, but what happens sometimes you mess up. You have been perfected. It says in Hebrews that you have been sanctified, perfected forever, but that you're still being sanctified.

So there's part of you that's been perfected forever. There's part of you that's holy and righteous, but there's a part of you that's still in process. And see what happens sometimes is the enemy wants to remind you of your failures so that he can keep you from being the representative of God that he's called you to be. See his first goal is this, if you have no relationship with Jesus, if you've never made Jesus the Lord of your life, he'll do everything he can do to keep you from saying yes to Jesus.

But once you've said yes to Jesus, once you've been made new, once he's come to live on the inside, goal number two of the enemy is this, to keep you from being a representative, to keep you from being an ambassador, to keep you from going and doing what God has called you to do. And you know how he does it? He reminds you of how unqualified you are. He reminds you that you just failed last night, that you just failed this morning.

Maybe you failed on the way to church. What does God say about Abraham? When he comes to a bimalek in a dream, he doesn't say that man is a liar, that man is a schemer, that man is underhanded. He says he is a prophet.

God does not call Abraham based on what he just did. He calls him based on who he is in Christ. Because several chapters earlier in Genesis 15, 6, it says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness. And that's how Abraham becomes the father of our faith because he was the first man to put his faith in God and based on faith and faith alone, God declares him righteous.

He says you're innocent, you're not guilty, you're faultless. A lot of people will theologically agree with righteousness. How many are, how many here today are righteous? How many are not sure?

How many are scared to put your hand up? You're not sure. If you've accepted Jesus, he's made you righteous. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that you might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5, 21, Romans 5, 19, and 20 says this, it says, by the disobedience of one man Adam, many were made sinners. But by the obedience of one man, many shall be made righteous. So your righteousness, your standing in Jesus, is not dependent on anything you did or anything you're doing or anything you may do tomorrow. It's based on him and him alone.

See when God says that you're a man or woman of God, it's because he said it. It's because your standing is in him. Some people say, oh yeah, I've been made righteous. But then when they, if I said to you, could you look God in the eye right now and not hang your head?

See, I think a definition of righteousness is this. It's the ability to look God in the eye. Think about this. If you stood in front of God, look the Father in the eye.

Could you hold your head up and look him eyeball to eyeball with no sense of guilt, no sense of shame or no sense of condemnation? Or would you do this? See if you do this, it's because the enemy puts something in your head to tell you you're not qualified to stand in what he's made you. See what happens is the enemy, what do you think he was whispering in Abraham's ear?

Are you kidding me? You're a liar. You are living a lie. You're representing something to be true that's not completely true.

You think God's going to use you? You've got to be kidding. But God said the man is a prophet. See, I know a God about this that you remember when God called Abraham, he said he changed his name from Abram, which means exalted father to Abraham, which means father of a multitude.

Do you know when he did that? When he had no kids. Imagine people calling you father of a multitude when you got no kids and your wife can't have kids. But here's the God we serve.

Romans, chapter 4 says this, God who brings the dead things to life and calls those things that be not as though they were. I think the translation I have up here, right there it says, he summons the things that do not exist. See, when God calls something and he calls you a prophet to the nations, when he calls you a woman of God, a man or God, you might say, well, I'm not acting like it right now. That's what the enemy wants you to think.

Because if he can keep you in relating your qualifications to your holy living, he can keep you from doing what God's called you to do. And so identity. Do you remember Gideon? Gideon and Judges 6, if the Midianites are attacking Israel, they're taking everything that belongs to Israel.

And God, the angel of the Lord comes to Gideon, he's hiding in the winepress, threshing wheat because he's fearful of the Midianites. And God says, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. In the midst of fear, God calls him a man of valor. He says, my clan is the weakest in minasa.

I'm the least in my father's house. Like he didn't believe it. But God said, the Lord is with you. See when God's with you, it doesn't matter what you think about yourself.

It matters what God says about you. See when the 12 spies came back from spying out the land, you remember 10 gave the bad report? Two said we choose to believe God's report. And I encourage you today, believe his report, believe what he says about you.

Number two is this, I don't know, I can preach that one by point. Number two, intercession. It says he is a prophet and he will do what? He will pray.

Pray means to intercede. He says, when he prays, you will live. The word live, it doesn't mean just to exist. Do you remember when Elijah with the widow of Zeraphath or sundaes?

It says that he went in, he laid upon the boy three times, he prayed to God, heard his prayer, and the soul of the boy came back and he revived. Revived is the word live. It also like when the guy was thrown on the bones of Elijah and he came back to life. When Hezekiah was sick and he prayed and his health was restored.

This word means to restore, it means to bring back to life. He says when he prays, whatever is wrong, whatever is broken in your life, it's going to be fixed. But see, intercession, to intercede, prayer has to take place. See, when you realize that you're righteous in Christ, all of a sudden I can have confidence to pray because I'm not praying based on my goodness, I'm paying on who I am in Jesus.

It doesn't matter, I'm not giving you an excuse to live a certain way, but I'm saying if you messed up, your confidence in prayer is not based on your ability to live a holy life, it's not even based on your ability to pray a good prayer. It just says that you need to pray. See, when we pray, we align the petitions on earth with divine purpose, that God has a will, that God has a purpose, that God's a healing God, and that when we pray, we bring alignment between what we need and what He's provided. It says in James 5, it says that the prayer of faith will save the sick.

It'll bring restoration to those. It doesn't mean salvation like the new birth. It means healing when you pray in faith. It means to, it says the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick.

And then like this, it says the effective, the King James and I read, it says the effective fervent prayer. This says the effective prayer of a what kind of man or woman? A righteous one. See, if you're not grounded in that, you're going to be wondering, well, can I pray effectively because I just messed up.

But it says that the effective prayer of a righteous man, the effective prayer of a righteous woman evails much. It means it's powerful to get results. I love that word effective. It's the Greek word, energeo.

Any guess what we get from that word? Energy. Do you ever hear of two kinds of energy? You have kinetic energy right here.

Potential. Potential is like sitting there, like it could do something, but it's not doing anything. Kinetic is what? It's energy that's in motion.

And this is like, it says the effective prayer. It means when you put prayer into motion, it's not talking about how effective your prayers are because they'll get no results if you don't do them. See, prayer becomes effective when you pray it. You actually put something into motion when you begin to pray.

The effective prayers, the prayers that are in operation become powerful when a righteous man or woman of God pray them. It goes on to say this in the next verse, I don't have it up there, but it says Elijah was a man with like passions like we have. He prayed and it didn't rain for three years. Do you know what he prayed?

He prayed according to the word of the Lord, it's down that rain for three years. How long of a prayer was that? Like, how many times we think, well, it's got to be loud. It's got to be long.

It's got to be a million people praying at one time. One man, a short prayer, prayed according to the word of God, brought about a famine that lasted three years. And it said, and he prayed again, he said, it won't rain again unless it comes by my word. Three years later he goes to Ahab.

You know what he said? He goes, you better get going. I hear the sound of the abundance of rain. Now, he went on top of Mount Carmel, put his head down between his knees seven times, sent his guy to go watch for the cloud.

But all he said was, I hear the sound of the abundance of rain. He would put all these things on prayer, but prayer, prayed in faith in a Jesus name, has the ability to bring about supernatural results. You need to know who you are in Christ, and you need to stand on that. And you need to release bold, faith-filled prayers based on who he is, not based on who or what you did.

It's based on Jesus. Pray confident, faith-filled prayers regardless of what the situation looks like. You know this, when I talk about kinetic prayers, 100 percent of the prayers pray, I never get answered. If you never pray, why would you expect an answer?

Well, what if I mess up? So what? You got to get it in motion. You got to open your mouth.

You got to take authority. You have to know who you are in Christ. What's God's word say and then release it and be confident about it. Number four is this.

It's said he is a prophet. He will pray for you. And then in verse 17 it says this, last one, and then we're going to pray quickly. It says, Abraham prayed, look at this.

Abraham prayed and God did what? God healed. Abraham, say it. Abraham prayed, God healed.

I feel like it takes great less. Abraham prayed, God healed. You young people don't know what that. You probably don't know that commercial.

I know your age if you just laughed at that. In case like what in the world are you talking about? See Abraham prayed, God healed. See God does the supernatural, but he chooses to partner with us.

It doesn't matter if you messed up or didn't mess up. He's made you and called you who you are. He said, you are a child of God. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness.

Paul says this, he says, know therefore that only those who are of faith are children of Abraham, not biological, but faith. It says the scripture for seeing that God would justify the gentiles by faith preached the gospel to Abraham saying, and you show all nations of the earth be blessed. Therefore those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. See the same way Abraham believed.

It's the same way we believe. The blessing of Abraham is not a bunch of stuff. It's the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. What he made him.

See do you remember the story when Peter and John, they go to the day of Pentecost and there's a lame guy at the temple? Do you remember that in Acts chapter three the guy's lame? He's begging, right? He's at the temple begging for alms.

And he thinks Peter and John are going to give him something. And Peter looks at him intently in Acts 3, 6 and says this, silver and gold, have I none, but such as I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk. What he had was power in him and he had authority to release it.

What you have in you is power. What Jesus has commissioned you with is authority. So you have the same authority that the disciples have. You have the same authority that any great person of the faith, you pick whoever you want, the same authority, the same power that Jesus has commissioned you to do it.

See when this guy gets healed, it says he immediately stood up and everybody's like, whoo, they're blown away. And look what Peter says. Go to the next slide. Peter says, when Peter saw it, he responded, man of Israel, why do you marvel at this?

Why do you look at tentle? Because they're focusing on Peter and John. They're like, my gosh, these guys are, they've got it. It must be them.

Peter was the first apostle of the church, but it must be that guy. He must have something special. What's Peter say? Don't look at us as though our own power or our own godliness.

Peter says it wasn't my power and it wasn't me living a holy life. Who was the guy that just denied Jesus just a few weeks before that guy? He said, what my power and it wasn't my godliness that made this man walk, it's his name through faith in his name is made this man strong whom you now see and know yes, the faith which comes through him who has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Peter recognized that the power comes from God.

Peter recognized it wasn't his holiness, his godliness that gave him the ability to command the lame to walk. He said, what I have, I give you in the name of Jesus, rise and walk, but hey, it wasn't me. All I did was pray. What God did was bring strength to this man's legs so that he now leaps and walks.

Like that shouldn't make anybody surprised. Like wouldn't it be a surprise if I healed somebody? Yeah, because I'm just a car dealer, right? And we're like down the bottom with like attorneys and car dealers.

We're like at the bottom of the barrel. But when God does it, I mean, he's God. He created everything. And so it shouldn't be like a mind-blowing thing, although it is, but it shouldn't because all we see partners with us, like we are parts easy.

All we get to do is pray and believe in what he do. He brings salvation. He brings the new birth. He brings healing.

He brings deliverance from bondages. He does it. Like I don't have to convince him to do it. You know what?

He already did it. He did it 2,000 years ago. He saved all the people, he all the people delivered everybody at the cross. And all you have to do is say, yes, I received that.

All right. That was as quick as I could do. I want to show you a testimony real quick. Let's read this.

I want to put it up here. Take a step of faith and allow God to use you as a channel through which his power can flow. Does anybody want to be a channel? Like it doesn't matter what you've done.

It doesn't matter what you're stuck in. God can use you. God can use you. And you know, here's what I found.

The more I walk with God, he takes care of my imperfections. He fixes me along the way. Like too many Christians want to wait until all the lights turn green before they step out the house. I encourage you to step out when the light's still red.

I encourage you to come to dance practice before you even get to go on a trip. Because God is preparing. If I wait, if Kated waited, until all the lights were green, you never would have went. You need to take a step of faith.

Take a risk. Step out and see what God can do. Friday night, we're preaching at the city square. I want you to imagine we're at the center of Liberia, 60-some-thousand people, center city, Catholic church in the background.

Probably I don't know. Probably you could see several-thousand people. Huge. We're in the middle of a gazebo.

Testimonies, drama. The gospel goes forth. We call for healing. Anybody that wants salvation, healing.

And I see a guy kind of shuffle up. Don't think much about it. The team prays for this guy. Don't show the picture yet.

Some of the team pray for this guy. He goes home. I talked to him after church. I mean, after that service, he said, hey, we live about an hour away.

We'd love to come to your church. They were believers. They were born again, Christian. He and his wife, we talked to him just connected a little bit.

They said, we're going to come. Well, guess what? They didn't come to church Sunday morning. Don't want to have fly, I guess.

But here's what he did. Sunday morning, we have great service. Salvador goes back to the church Sunday night to clean some stuff up, put some stuff away. We don't go with him.

This guy shows up 8 o'clock on Sunday night, drives an hour to give testimony to what God did. See, sometimes when a healing takes place, you don't see the results immediately. Sometimes see things take, let me tell you this. You got a few minutes.

Sometimes things happen in time as we live, but they happen instantaneously in the spirit realm. When Jesus cursed the fig tree, Matthew's version said, it died immediately. Mark's version says they came out the next day, and Peter says, master look, the fig tree which you cursed yesterday is now dried up. And so what we see in the natural takes place in time, but what takes place in the spirit realm happens instantaneously.

What Jesus said to him, he said, have faith in God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea and does not doubt in their heart, but believes what he says, he shall have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, what so ever things you ask, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you'll have them. See, believing takes place when we pray.

Having them may take place immediately or it could take place the next day. And that's what happened in this great miracle. The team prays for this guy who we don't know at the time has diabetic neuropathy in his foot. A month earlier, the doctors wanted to cut his foot off.

I'm going to show you a picture in a minute, his grotesque. He and his wife were believing for a miracle. They were believing for a touch from God. They decided not to get his foot cut off, but to believe for a miracle.

Every day, and I have a picture from February 6th, 2026, just about five weeks before we went down there, every morning his wife would get up and clean the oozing sores in the bottom of his feet like gaping holes. She gets up Sunday morning as every other morning to clean his feet and says, what happened to your feet? They're completely healed. I want to show you a picture of Oscar.

This is Oscar in the middle. He probably can't see him for the cross. But Oscar Sunday night at eight o'clock comes back to give a verbal video testimony in Spanish of what God did for him. Over here is a picture from February 5th, 2026 of what his feet look like every single day that his wife got up to cleanse them.

March 15th, the morning that we launch our new church, here's the picture of his toes while still a little deformed have been completely made whole. Let's give Jesus a hand. You guys can finish this. If he did it once, he'll do it again.

If he did it for him.